Mississippi Administrative Code
Title 16 - History, Humanities and Arts
Part 3 - Historic Preservation Division
Chapter 12 - Mississippi Standards and Guidelines for Archaeological Investigations
Appendix 16-3-12-A - Linear Resources

Linear resources are a collection of features that are substantially longer than they are wide and usually are in the form of monuments usually associated with transportation, communication, and power networks. They include roads, trails, railroads, ships, shipwrecks, flumes, canals, telegraph lines, power lines, and power poles. The linear shape of these sites presents unique problems when being addressed in the field and for their significance. Until recently this type of site has been largely ignored within the state of Mississippi. Our main goal is to raise awareness of these resources and provide information about how to approach their recordation and assess the significance of them.

Background research is essential to understanding the significance of the Linear Resource and developing an approach to dealing with the site in the field. Research should minimally include resources such as archaeological site files, Google Earth, GLO maps, USGS Maps, Earth Resources Data Center, National Register of Historic Places, published county histories, published water histories, and published power histories. The research conducted should be sufficient enough to identify potential resources that may be present and to provide a context for each resource. Additional research may require the use of secondary sources of data. These secondary sources should be used when a project area has a potential linear resource, especially if the project is likely to affect the site. Secondary sources include historical USGS maps, Sanborn fire insurance company maps, historical aerial photographs, land patent information, old county highway maps, and the Mississippi Department of Transportation. Other sources of information such as online digital historic newspaper databases, military maps, railroad company maps, GLO surveyor notes, utility company maps, and direct oral history interviews may need to be used to answer specific questions raised during field work.

When recording a linear site basic dimensions (or range of dimensions) of the main linear feature as it appears within your project area (railroad berm, roadbed, canal ditch, etc.) should be described in detail. These dimensions include the top width, the bottom width, the height or depth of the feature, and the length of the segment recorded. It should also be indicated how this dimension was determined (measured with a tape, estimated, etc.).

Determining if a feature or artifacts are associated with a linear site can be difficult. Artifacts and features of a linear site fall into two categories: functionally or spatially associated with the site. Functionally associated features/artifacts are things that exist solely because they serve a function of the linear site. These features/artifacts would not exist without the presence of the site. Headgates, flumes, bridges, railroad depots, trestles, water towers, rest areas, and right-of-way fences are just a few examples of functionally associated features. If these functionally associated features merit an architectural survey form, the form should be filled out and referenced within the archaeological report. That is to say if you have a railroad depot that is still standing, an architectural form would still need to be filled out and turned in with the final report; because the depot would still be a feature of the archaeological site it shall be addressed and cross referenced as such.

Artifacts/features of the linear site should also be spatially associated with the main feature of the linear site. For example trash is often disposed of alongside a road or a railroad. Isolated artifacts or small assemblages of artifacts that would not otherwise merit recordation as a site and which are closely spatially associated with a road or railroad should be recorded as artifacts associated with the resource. These small scatters of artifacts would be an associated feature of the linear site and should be treated as such.

There is some variability within these categories. There may be towns, trash dumps, construction camps, etc. close to the site. If the town, trash dump, etc. could be considered a site in and of itself, it should be treated as such. Also, if the linear site happens to cut through a site of a different time period, the linear site and the unrelated site should be considered two different sites. For example, if you have a major historic road that bisects a mound complex, the mound complex and the historic road would be considered two different sites. The reason the historic road and mound complex would not be considered a multi-component site in this case is because the historic road (or linear site) is not solely contained within the same site boundaries as the mound complex. That is to say the historic road has radically different site boundaries than the mound complex. Therefore the historic road, while it should be considered a site, is also considered an impact agent of the mound complex.

When it comes to recording the details of associated features (headgates, culverts, etc.) it is important to have the appropriate level of detail for the project. This can be established by providing a narrative, map and GPS locations, and photographs of the overall main site and each of the associated features so that an agency can determine where the feature is relative to the overall site, what the feature is, and what the current condition of the feature is. However, you do not need to provide detailed measurements for every associated feature, unless these measurements are necessary for distinguishing between the individual features. What is needed is a good picture, a good location, supplemented with enough measurements to convey scale and whatever else is not clearly seen in pictures or is unique or key to the construction of the feature. In other words, it is not necessary to measure every dimension of a culvert and associated wing walls, but it may be necessary to distinguish between culverts with a 12 inch diameter and culverts of a 30 inch diameter. When multiple redundant features (culverts, small trestles, etc.) are present, it is generally sufficient to describe one and show the location of others.

While Mississippi does require a 1:24,000 scale map on our site cards, this map is not sufficient enough on its own to relay information about features that may have been found during survey. Therefore, we would like to see a detail map showing the features and their overall relationship to the recorded segment of the linear site. During survey features should be assigned a feature number and used to cross reference descriptions, photographs and map locations. Features that should be mapped in detail include (but are not limited to) roadbeds, borrow ditches, culverts, bridges, headgates, flumes, poles, pole stumps, and artifact concentrations.

Once your site has been recorded and mapped, you still need to consider the eligibility of it. In Mississippi the majority of our linear resources have been written off as insignificant because they do not meet the requirements of Criterion D of the National Register of Historic Places; which makes sites eligible to the NRHP because they have yielded or may be likely to yield information important to history or prehistory. While most archaeologists concentrate on Criterion D, linear sites can be eligible under criteria A, B, C and D.

In order to be considered significant, trails and transportation sites must have, or have the potential to have a significant impact upon the interpretation of important historical events or patterns, people, and architectural/engineering types associated with the trail or transportation route. Secondly, the information must have cast, or have the potential to cast, significant light upon important scientific or scholarly concepts, ideas, questions, hypothesis, theories, or models tied to important patterns and themes in local, state, or national history.

Trails and transportation routes can be eligible under Criterion A. Criterion A states that a site that is eligible if it is "associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history." Trails and transportation routes can help interpret or provide significant information about historical events important to national cultural identities, such as ethnic groups or nationalities or social groups. A good example of this in Mississippi would be the Choctaw Trail of Tears, where after the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek ceded land in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to the United States nearly 17,000 Choctaws moved to Oklahoma. Historic trails might also contain information that helps interpret or provide significant information about economic or political developments that are important in local, state, or national history. For example, trails play an important role in understanding the settlement and incorporation of the frontier. Historic trails can also address migration and other historically important demographic events and processes in local, state, and national population history. The material expression of these historic routes often includes archaeological and other material remains that contain significant information capable of helping to interpret and answer important scholarly and scientific questions about settlement patterns in Mississippi.

Historic trails and transportation routes may also help address research issues surrounding the formation of landscapes or episodes of environmental change that are significant to local, state, or national history. Some key landscape research questions include: the evolution of settlement patterns associated with the route (for example the evolution of towns and communities that develop along the route of a railroad); the evolution of vegetation patterns associated with the route (things like deforestation from timber cutting); the evolution of landforms associated with transportation routes; and the evolution of ethnic and cultural landscapes expressing cultural identities associated with the routes.

While these concepts can apply to trails, roads, and railroads, roads and railroads can also be considered eligible under Criterion C. Criterion C specifies that a site should "embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction." For a railroad to be considered eligible under Criterion C, it is necessary to examine things like rolling stock (or wheeled vehicles) and the railroad beds. For rolling stock (locomotives, train cars, etc.) to be eligible under Criterion C they would need to specifically embody the distinctive design characteristics of a technology. They would also need to retain these distinctive design characteristics so that the integrity of the design and workmanship are still present.

Railroad grades are the roadbed foundations that allowed movement of the rolling stock. In most cases, grades were constructed by depositing ballast of crushed rock or earth to prepare a level, dry base for the ties. Some grades may have been cut into slopes. After use, rails were usually removed and ties were often salvaged by local residents for reuse. Abandoned railroad grades have often been turned into road beds. To be eligible under Criterion C these abandoned railroad grades need to be well preserved enough to convey the design and workmanship of the method of construction.

Trestles are structures that allow the rolling stock cross streams, drainages, and depressions while keeping the incline of the railroad grade at a gentle incline. Trestles are often significant for their method and type of construction and, therefore, might be eligible under Criterion C. Mississippi has numerous railroads ranging from small logging "dummy" lines that made an impact on the local logging industry to major railroads like the Illinois Central Railroad which had a major impact on our nation's history.

Historic roads are another major group of linear sites that are present within the state of Mississippi. Often times these historic roads are ignored, or casually mentioned and not assigned a site number. Historic roads, like railroads, trails, and other methods of transportation can be eligible under Criterion A, but they can also be eligible under Criteria B, C, and D.

A good example of how a road may be eligible under B, C and D is a way station. Way stations might be eligible for their association with specific settlement periods in Mississippi, or for their association with an important person under Criterion B. Location, setting and association are the key elements of integrity; way station properties must be highly visible to retain integrity. In addition, they might be eligible under criterion C as an expression a distinctive technological pattern. Under Criterion D, they might be eligible for their information value. Key research issues include way stations as commercial households, world-system relationships, consumerism, technology, and social structure. In addition to road engineering features like bridges, tunnels, culverts, cut and fill landscape features, road bed remnants and other engineering features could be eligible under Criterion C as examples of a pattern of road engineering technology. To be eligible in this case, they need to retain integrity of materials, workmanship and design. Roadbed remnants are often eligible under Criterion D for their information value. Key research questions include the evolution of transportation, the evolution of regional settlement systems, and road capitalization. Under criterion D, the roadbed needs to retain integrity of association, materials, and workmanship. One thing to note about integrity of materials, is that if the road (during the period of significance) was a paved road, and is now still a paved road, even though the asphalt may have been upgraded and changed over time, the road still retains its integrity because the materials have not changed since that period of significance.

Once it is decided that a linear resource is eligible, there are two ways to nominate your property to the National Register of Historic Places. The first method would be to nominate it as a District. To nominate a linear site as a district it needs to be continuous, with no breaks or missing parts to the main linear feature. This approach is probably best for smaller linear features, like small logging railroads. The other way to nominate a linear site is as a multiple property listing. This approach is used when the linear site is not intact, but rather exists in pieces across an extended area. This approach applies best to major routes of transportation or linear sites that may have stretched across large portions of the state.

In conclusion, linear resources have played an important role in the development of our nation and within the state of Mississippi. With better background research and field methods we hope to improve the preservation and understanding of these resources.